


winter kept us warm

by therestlessbrook



Series: and my heart beside [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I will give them a happy ending, Post-Season 1 of the Punisher, Romance, Slow Burn, because they deserve it, with a bit of Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-18 17:23:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17585111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestlessbrook/pseuds/therestlessbrook
Summary: He keeps returning to her.Or, they find their after together.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I keep accidentally writing for this ship and I can’t bring myself to regret it. I love these two so much.

It begins in a hospital, with the scent of sterilized plastic and rubber gloves. It begins with a series of rules.

_Do not give Castle anything._

_Do not take anything from him._

_He's tied down, but keep your distance and mind the tape. Do not step past it._

It takes Karen less than five minutes to break one rule. It takes only an hour to break all three.

In hindsight, she should have known these would be the least of her sins where Frank Castle is concerned.

* * *

This is how it truly begins: with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a pair of nail clippers.

No—that isn’t quite right. It begins with Karen coming home to her apartment and seeing a man sitting at her kitchen table. Her hand twitches into her purse, fingers sliding around the trigger of her gun before her eyes adjust to the light. She sees a broken nose, sharp jawline, and familiar dark eyes rimmed with equally familiar dark bruises.

“Good,” says Frank, nodding at her purse. “Reflexes still sharp, I see.”

She’s heard people at the office, on the street, on podcasts, all saying they wish they could stare the Punisher in the face. Some would like to tell him that he’s a monster, others a hero. Some would like to hurt him. Some just want to look into his eyes and see what kind of darkness lurks there. But what Karen sees is Frank. It’s just Frank. With a bit of scruff on his neck and jaw, bruises along his cheeks. 

Karen releases the grip of her handgun and sets her purse on the table. “Frank. You’re okay.” 

She hasn’t seen him since the hotel. Since he heaved himself into an elevator shaft and left her with the remembered warmth of his forehead against hers, and murmured, “ _Take care._ ”

“How did you get in?” she asks.

“Your deadbolt is broken. The other lock was easy to pick.”

Her gaze flies to the windows. When she rented this place, she thought they were nice. A fire escape, just outside. An escape route, if she needs one—but now the glass seems too fragile, the transparency too vulnerable. She wonders if any of his demons have followed him here. Perhaps she needs to find a place on a higher floor.

“I heard—something about the carousel,” she says, gaze still on the windows. Her fingers tighten on the gun. “A shoot-out.”

“Something like that.” He exhales. “Someone I trusted fucked me sideways.” His fingers come up, and it looks like an unconscious gesture when he runs his thumb over the mostly-healed wound along his scalp. It’s the one she remembers most from that day in the hotel: blood flowing down his neck and chest, the pallor of his skin. That wound must have been dealt by the betrayer—and her stomach cramps a little with nausea. For them to get _that_ close to killing him, Frank must indeed have trusted them.

“Are they still… around?” she asks. She hasn’t set down her gun yet.

“No.” The word is sharp and rough, and it draws Karen’s eyes back to Frank. “No—I. He’s in the hospital. They don’t know if he’ll ever wake up. If he were still around—I wouldn’t lead him here.”

She draws in a breath. “You fought him at the carousel?”

“Yes,” he says curtly. “It’s over.”

There is a strange balance to the universe, a way of settling things. Karen sets her handgun on the counter, then goes to sit beside Frank. She knows well enough that words don’t always suffice, so she sets her hand on his forearm. He’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt, and the fabric feels worn beneath her fingers. His eyes flash toward hers, and for a moment she thinks he will shake her off, stand up, and leave.

Instead, his hand covers hers. She can feel the creases of his fingers, the calluses at the edges of his thumb and forefinger. For a few minutes, they sit in silence. It’s rather comfortable, and Karen doesn’t feel the need to fill it with small talk. Then Frank lets out a breath and says, “I hate to do this. I mean—it’s stupid, and I can go to Lieberman, but—he and his wife are making the most of their reunion and—”

“What do you need?”

He grimaces. “Stitches. They need to come out—and I can’t quite reach them.”

She nods. “I can do that.”

They end up in her bathroom, Frank sitting on the toilet with his elbows on his knees, while she digs her first aid kit from under the sink. She put it together herself, once it became apparent she would need more than antibiotic cream and bandages. She wipes down her nail clippers and a pair of tweezers with rubbing alcohol. While she works, Frank pulls off his black shirt.

His back and chest would have made Pollock proud. His skin is a canvas of color—mostly-healed green with splashes of fresher reds and purples. She sees the places where bullets have dug furrows into him, and there are a few raised lines along his back that she doesn’t even want to guess at. The fight at the carousel must have been rougher than he is letting on, because these can’t all be from the hotel.

She kneels beside Frank, examining the back of his arm. The last time she saw him, there was a piece of shrapnel sticking out of it. She brings her nail clippers up, very carefully nudging at one of the knots. “You sure you want me to do this?”

He glances at her. Then nods.

She goes to work: she gently snips each stitch, drawing them free with her tweezers. It’s slow, because the last thing she wants to do is screw this up and hurt him. Once the sutures are in the trash, she rubs the wound with antiseptic and covers it with with a bandage. “Still good?” she asks, rising to her feet.

He nods. “Barely felt a thing.”

He doesn’t ask if she’s done this before and she doesn’t volunteer the information. Rather, her fingers hover over his temple. “This one, too?”

A moment of hesitation, then a quiet, “Please.”

It feels more intimate than the wound on his arm. Perhaps it’s because this one was dealt by someone that hurt him so deeply. Or perhaps it’s because she’s standing over him, one hand on his cheek, thumb at his temple as she gently pulls the stitches free. His eyes are closed, but she can see the flicker of movement beneath the lids.

When she’s finished, she examines her handiwork with a half-frown. “There’ll probably be a scar,” she says, because she feels like she has to.

“Add it to the list,” he replies, reaching up to tentatively probe at his head. “Thank you.” It isn’t so much the words as the way he says them.

She swallows, twists the faucet to life, and begins scrubbing her hands under the cold stream. A shudder runs through her. She senses Frank, feels the heat of his body as he leans over and turns the warm water on. A few seconds later, the temperature becomes more bearable. She looks over her shoulder and he’s there. Right there. She can see the fine lines etched into his forehead, smell gun oil and coffee, and feel that closeness.

She looks up and meets his eyes again. His face is set in implacable lines, but somewhere along the line, she learned his tells. There’s something in the way he stands, the way his eyes keep tracking toward all the soft things in the bathroom: towels, rug, washcloth. She wonders how long it’s been since he felt anything clean and soft. “Do you have a place to stay?” she asks. The water still runs over her hands and she finally twists the faucet off.

“Stay?” he says, as if the word is foreign.

She closes her eyes for a moment. “It’s cold out there—and my couch isn’t terrible.” Her fingers drip water onto the rug. He silently hands her a towel.

“Come on,” she says. “I’ve got a few mens’ shirts in my closet. It’s not fancy, but it’ll be clean.”

He makes a sound—it’s a questioning little rumble. “You’ve got someone coming ‘round? If you’re expecting—”

She snorts. “No. But after seeing so many of my friends stagger around after being shot or blown-up, I’ve learned to keep a few extra pieces of clothing around.”

Which is how Frank Castle ends up on her couch eating curry and wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon avocado on it. She bought it back when Foggy and Matt were still making jokes about avocados at law. But now Matt’s gone and Foggy’s got his own life. And she has... this. 

She flicks on the television, sifting through channels until she finds a home redecorating show. It’s innocuous enough, and every so often Frank grunts when the host says something about foundations or drywall. 

Once the food is gone and her energy is waning, Karen goes to the closet and retrieves her extra blankets. She doesn’t bother offering him the bed; she knows he won’t take it. So she makes up the couch as comfortably as she can, and muttering something about buying better sheets. She can feel Frank’s eyes on her as she moves about the room. “There’s painkillers in the cupboard above the sink if you need them,” she says. “I’m sorry, I don’t have an extra toothbrush for you to borrow.”

“It’s fine,” he says quietly.

There are so many things she could ask him—what he’s going to do now, if he’s satisfied that things have finally ended, where he’ll go, what he wants. But she won’t ask, because to ask would be to invite answer she’s not sure she is ready for.

She goes to her desk. There’s a hidden back, and she pops it out, fingers rummaging around until she finds a slip of metal.

She sets the key down on the coffee table in front of Frank. “In case you get tired of picking my locks,” she says.

His bruise-dark eyes drop to the key, then return to her face.

“Karen,” he says. It isn’t truly an answer, but it still brings tears to the corners of her eyes. Fuck. It feels like they’ve been teetering on the edge of something for months, and she’s about to fall off that edge—but she isn’t sure he would fall with her. And she doesn’t want to push him into anything he doesn’t want to do.

“Just… don’t vanish forever, okay?” she says.

She gets halfway across the living room before she hears his low rasp. “Okay.”

She slows, one hand on the door frame as she looks over her shoulder. All of the light in the room seems to be coming from the windows: the red of a streetlight, the glow of headlights passing by. They paint him in hues of gold and crimson, and not for the first time, she thinks of how most people would think her insane for loving him. He’s a killer and—

Well. So is she.

“Goodnight, Frank,” she says, and shuts her bedroom door behind her.

* * *

When she gets up in the morning, the blankets are all carefully folded on the couch’s arm. There’s a cup of fresh coffee waiting for her on the counter.

Frank is gone. So is the key.


	2. Chapter 2

Flowers are delivered to her work that Tuesday.

She’s in a staff meeting; Ellison is listening to two senior writers excitedly explain their new idea for their website, and his eyes have distinctly glazed look. Karen is taking notes on her own story, only half-listening, when one of the newer interns knocks on the door. He’s young and vibrating with nervous energy, and he makes Karen feel tired just looking at him. “Sorry,” he says, when Ellison flashes beckons him into the room. “Mailroom got a special delivery for Ms. Page.”

“Put it in my office,” says Karen, at the same time Ellison says, “Security checked it, right?”

The intern looks torn between who to answer first, so he seems to try both. “Yes and—of course.”

Karen gives Ellison a flat look. He is unapologetic. “Considering a bomber’s manifesto was sent to your office less than a month ago, you’ll forgive some precautions.”

“Fair,” she admits.

She likes Ellison, she really does. He gave her a chance when few others would. They manage a balance between them: her instincts and stubbornness to his well-earned knowledge and commercial inclinations. And he allows her leeway that few other bosses would.

When she returns to her office, she’s sees a small flower pot. The blooms are lovely—blue with palest yellow at their center. She looks for a card, but there is none. Rather, when her fingers skim the edges of the plastic pot, she finds something metal. She digs it from the potting soil—a small, silver key. She wipes dirt from its teeth. It’s unfamiliar.

She types the flower’s description into her search browser and finds the species. They’re morning glories. She reads the list of instructions for how to keep one alive: the soil shouldn’t be too moist and they should be in full sun. It’ll have to go in a window.

She carries the plant home with her, eyes darting toward dark alleys and high buildings. She wonders if he’s nearby or perhaps he retreated from the city and called this order in. But, no—a florist wouldn’t have put a key in the pot.

The meaning of the key becomes clear when she walks down the hallway to her apartment and sees her door. The deadbolt has been replaced. Karen slides the key into it, turns, and the bolt slides free.

She sets the potted plant on the windowsill and slips the new key into her purse.

That evening, she isn’t surprised when her phone rings and it’s an unknown number. “Page,” she answers, almost automatically.

“Hey.” His voice always feels like it knocks something loose inside of her; she sits down on the arm of the couch.

“Hey.” She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “You know, technically my landlord is supposed to get a copy of any new keys.”

“Don’t really see the point of that, if you’re trying to be secure.” He exhales. “Besides, that’d mean giving up my copy.”

“We can’t have that, can we?” she replies. “And I suppose I should thank you for simply replacing the deadbolt, rather than installing an entire security system.”

A scoff. “Those things can be hacked. Remotely deactivated.”

“So you’re old-fashioned about most everything?”

“That’s right,” he says. “You want security, get good locks and a dog.”

“My landlord would definitely have something to say about that.”

“Noted.” She can hear some road noises on his end of the phone and the slight rasp of his breathing. “Listen, I’m going to be dealing with some stuff,” he says. “I’ve got—well, they set me up with a new life. Just need to figure out how to settle in it.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m staying with a friend,” he says. “I’ll figure the rest out. Might take a few weeks. Just wanted you to know—this number. You can reach me on it.”

Oh. So he isn’t just using a burner or a payphone.

“We’ve moved past secret window signals?” she asks, with a glance toward the roses. They’re still alive and resting on her coffee table—mostly because one of her neighbors is a retired gardener and took pity on her.

Another hoarse laugh. There’s a scritching sound, and she imagines him rubbing a hand across his mouth, stubble beneath his palm. “Yeah, suppose we have. Listen, I know you’re doing good and all, but if anything comes up, you know how to get in touch.”

She doesn’t bristle the way she might have, if anyone else said those words. She can take care of herself—has been taking care of herself for over a decade. But with Frank, there’s no implication that she _needs_ help, merely that if she _wants_ it, he’ll be there. “Thanks, Frank,” she says. “Take care.”

“You, too.”

She hangs up and presses her thumbnail against her lips. It’s only then she realizes she’s smiling.

* * *

Here is the thing Karen hates most about grief—it’s unpredictable.

Injuries, she can deal with. She’s had her fair share of bruises and cuts, a broken bone or two—even a concussion, years ago. She was able to watch the skin scab over, see the bruises fade, flex her muscles and move on. But the mind is trickier; it has a tendency to go quiet for weeks at a time, and then sucker punch her when she’s not expecting it.

She’s been on edge all day, without truly realizing why. Keyed up and jittery, high-heeled toes bouncing at her desk. She doesn’t smile at the intern when he asks if he can grab her coffee. She stays at her desk, pencil behind her ear, frowning at the edits Ellison has made on her newest article.

It’s only when she glances down at her phone does everything come crashing down.

A reminder has popped up. She programmed it in months ago.

 _Matt’s B-Day_ , it reads.

She stares at the little reminder. She remembers Foggy telling her the date, her putting it in her phone so she wouldn’t forget. She remember saying something about bringing cupcakes to the office.

Except now there is no office. There is no Nelson & Murdock. And Matt is buried beneath a building.

She texts Foggy. _You all right?_

There’s no answer.

Of course he isn’t all right. And she feels awkward reaching out further, because as much as she cared for Matt, she didn’t know him as long as Foggy did—and she feels she has less right to grief than he does. So she works through her lunch hour, and leaves work a bit early.

She walks home. The light is waning, but she takes her time. She looks at the city—truly looks at it. This place, that Matt died for.

She doesn’t want to go home. So goes to her building’s roof, instead. She sits there, watching the sunlight fade and the streetlights flicker to life. It’s cold, but she doesn’t care.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket, then on a whim, punches in a new text.

_You around?_

Frank hasn’t told her where’s living. Just that he’s with a friend. Who this friend is, she has no idea. Maybe it’s that David Lieberman.

It takes Frank about thirty seconds to answer. _Could be. Need something?_

Her fingers hesitate over the keys. That reckless part of her wants to type back “you” or something equally damning. Instead, she replies: _No. Just a bad day. Sorry to bother you._ She slips her phone into her pocket so she won’t be tempted to look at it. She watches the city instead. Perhaps an hour passes—she can’t be sure. Clouds pass overhead and she breathes in the scent of winter dryness and car fumes and nearby restaurants. Finally, when the biting cold becomes too much for her, she slips back into the building and descends to her hallway.

He’s sitting beside her door.

When he hears her footsteps, Frank stands. It’s only been three weeks since she saw him last, but his hair looks a little longer. She can still see the place where she took the stitches out of his scalp; there’s the faintest of white scars just above his right ear. But the bruises are faded, and he looks warm and comfortable in a winter coat.

“Hey,” she says. She isn’t quite sure what else to say. “Why are you sitting out here?”

“Because you weren’t home.”

“You have a key,” she points out.

He reaches down, and she suddenly sees the brown paper back on the floor. He picks it up. “Wasn’t sure if you’d be interested in this or not.”

She cocks an eyebrow at him.

The corners of his mouth curl. It’s wicked half-smile, one that promises a bit of mischief. “Beer,” he says, by way of explanation.

“Well, in that case—please come in.” She reaches down and unlocks her door. She’s still wearing her dress from work, and she kicks off her heels before heading into the bedroom. “I’ll be just a moment. Um—bottle opener’s in the drawer beside the fridge.” She doesn’t wait to see if he finds it; she heads for her bedroom, closes the door, and wriggles out of her dress. She replaces it with a t-shirt and loose sweatpants.

When she reemerges into the living room, Frank has opened two bottles of beer—and also unpacked what appears to be a glass container full of pasta. “I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten,” he says.

“Did you make that?”

“David did,” he says. “Sarah insisted on sending some with me.”

Her cheeks flush hot. He was having dinner with friends when she texted him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Save me from a nightcap,” he replies easily. “Trust me, I got out just in time. Sarah likes her rosés and I made the mistake of pretending I did, too, the first time we met.” He grimaces.

The idea of Frank drinking pink wine in the suburbs makes her laugh. “Frank Castle—fearless Punisher—cannot tell his friend’s wife that he doesn’t care for rosé?”

He flashes another one of those smiles at her. It drops about five years from his age and the sight makes her heart ache for what could have been for him. He might have looked this way all the time, had things gone differently. “She kissed me once,” he admits. “Back before she knew David was alive.”

“Really?” Karen picks up her beer, taking it to the couch. She settles, pulling a throw around her lap. Frank sits beside her, his own beer in hand.

“She was lonely.” He takes a sip, then shrugs. “It wasn’t about me. I knew it, even then.”

She remembers their last conversation about loneliness and takes a longer drag off her beer. Part of her wishes it was something a little stronger; she would welcome the heat of tequila or even the smoky burn of whisky. Maybe it would scald all of the turmoil out of her.

“Did David find out?” she asks. She figures she might as well use the man’s first name, since Frank seems to have befriended him.

Frank huffs out a breath. “Yup. And got drunk and insisted on dropping his pants to prove I had nothing on him.”

She chokes on her beer. “He did not.”

“He did.”

“You did not get into a dick-measuring contest with an ex-NSA analyst while hiding out in some bunker.”

“There was no measuring,” he says. “I sure as fuck didn’t measure.”

She is laughing now, laughing so hard she has to put down her bottle. She presses a hand to her mouth, cheeks aching from mirth, and finally looks back at Frank. He’s smiling again, but this time it’s softer. “And now you’re having dinner with him and his wife?”

“And the kids,” he adds. “They’re—good. Good kids. Good family.” There’s a way he says it—with longing—and it reminds Karen of her own grief, lurking at the corners of her mind.

“Well, I’m glad you’re friends with them,” she says quietly. “And—truly. Frank, you didn’t have to rush over here.”

His gaze is steady on her. There’s a knowing to his eyes that once unsettled her, but now she finds comforting. Frank has a way of slicing through formalities—cutting the bullshit, as Foggy would put it. “Something happened, didn’t it?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Not really.” The words come more easily than they should. “Matt. It’s Matt’s birthday today… or it would have been.” Realization sparks to life in her and she looks up sharply. “Shit. You don’t know—do you? Matt—”

“Died at Midland,” he says, and that stops her cold. “Yeah, I know.”

He knows.

He knows—and she hasn’t told him.

“You know who he was?” she asks.

Frank’s forehead creases as his brows draw together. “Knew it the moment he walked into my hospital room. I’d heard him talk when he wore that mask. Wasn’t hard to place that voice.” He tilts his head. “Wait—did you…?”

“No.” And the admission feels like it’s ripped from her chest. “I—I didn’t. Not then.”

For the first time that evening, a shadow of anger passes across Frank’s face. “He didn’t tell you.”

“Not until after… that night. When those people, the Hand, kidnapped me and those others. After I joined the newspaper and Nelson & Murdock closed down.” She digs her fingernail under the beer’s label and begins tearing at it, if only for something to do with her hands. “Not until everything had fallen apart.” She feels too tense, every muscle drawn tight. “I’m still angry about it sometimes. Which I know is shitty of me—because he’s dead. I shouldn’t still be mad at him, right? But we were friends. We were—we could have been—but he didn’t tell me, by the time were finally friends again, he chose to _stay_ down there and…” The words sputter out, her throat too tight.

“Hey, hey.” He moves closer, pulls the beer from her hands; the label is all but shredded. She can’t look at him, not with her eyes spilling over and grief still too raw.

Frank doesn’t say anything. Perhaps because he knows how there’s nothing to be said. The grief passes—as it always does, and when she’s mopped up her eyes—God, her mascara is probably a mess—and swallowed the last dregs of her beer, she turns back toward him. “So—wait,” she says. Her voice is still a little hoarse from crying. “You knew. That whole time we were working on your court case. You knew Daredevil was your lawyer?”

Frank rolls one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Yeah. Didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time. I had other things on my mind. Besides, I don’t remember him doing much lawyer-ing. It was you and Nelson around all the time.” A fond smile touches his lips. “Well, mostly you. Nelson was scared shitless.”

She hiccups out a laugh. “He was not.”

“He wouldn’t come near the red tape.”

“Well, they told us not to step over it.”

His gaze meets hers and holds it. “You did. Not a minute after you entered that room.”

Her heartbeat quickens. “Yeah, well. You weren’t that scary.” Her mouth twitches. It isn’t quite a smile, but near it. “And I’ve never really been all that good at following rules.”

“Worked out well for me,” he says softly.

Something has shifted—a tension pulled taut between them. Karen’s looks down at her own hands, for fear that her eyes will give too much away. She wants—she has wanted for months, and she feels like her wanting could bleed into the air and drive him away. He cares. She knows he cares—but how he cares has always been this undefined, unsettled thing. And she cannot lose another friend. She cannot.

“Well,” she says, reaching for her empty beer bottle. She picks up Frank’s, too, and heads for the kitchen. The bottles go in the recycling bin, an she leans against the counter. “I’m sorry I dragged you away from your dinner.”

When she turns back, she sees Frank is on his feet. His expression is unreadable, steady. He gives her a nod. “Don’t forget the pasta. Should eat something, even if you don’t feel like it.”

She forces a smile—and manages to hold it until she closes the front door behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

Most days, Karen loves her job.

She’s good at it, and it's nice to feel wanted. To be part of something. It makes sitting through even the most boring of staff meetings bearable. This was all she wanted with Nelson & Murdock: a purpose, a team, and the knowledge that she’s doing something that mattered. She found it here, instead.

But then there are days like this.

She leans against the fence outside the courthouse. She’s wearing a stiff black and white dress. A headache blooms at the base of her neck, and she knows it’s because she can’t unclench her jaw.

Nearby, she hears a reporter talking into the camera. “—Surprising turn with Piotr Kotov’s trial,” the man is saying. Karen turns away; she already heard this once and she can’t bear to again.

She doesn’t return to the office. Ellison will understand. If he’s heard the news, he’s probably rending out what’s left of his hair. He’s got kids, after all. And he’s read the rough draft she put together—the one that interviewed Kotov’s victims.

Karen can’t go back to the office, not with fury burning a hole in her belly. She doesn’t want to get drunk. And while she knows that Foggy would gladly listen to her rant, she also knows that tonight he’s having dinner with his family. She won’t bother him.

She takes a cab instead.

She has Frank’s address; he gave it to her about twenty-four hours after he first rented the place. She hasn’t seen it—it’s not in the best of neighborhoods, and Frank always seems to show up at her place, instead. But now, she doesn’t want her emotions to follow her into any familiar places.

His apartment is one of two that are above a restaurant. She takes the stairs up to the second door and knocks.

There’s no answer. So Karen settles down on the stairs, wraps her arms around herself and waits. Her mind keeps turning circles, recalling voices and stories, and she feels like she could drown in them. She presses her fingers to the bridge of her nose, squeezing hard. She hasn’t felt like this in a long time, but her body remembers the hot flush of anger and panic.

It’s about an hour before she hears footsteps rattling the metal stairs. She glances down.

Frank is there. And for a moment, she forgets everything else. Because he’s dressed in a loose plaid shirt, sweat in the space between his collarbones, and there’s a yellow hardhat dangling from his fingertips.

He looks like something out of a calendar featuring sexy construction workers. And she is never going to get that image out of her head.

“Karen,” he says, startled. His attention sharpens, and his gaze flashes around their surroundings. “You okay?”

She rises from her seat on the stairs, brushing dirt from her fingers. “Can we talk?”

He nods, hastens up the stairs. “Come on. You shouldn’t just be sitting out here.” He jams a key into the lock and twists it open.

She steps inside. His apartment is small, clean, and stark. It’s a studio, and she catches a glimpse of the bed in the corner. There’s a desk with a few old books on it—and a miniature fridge humming away in the corner.

“It’s not much,” he says, “but it beats an underground bunker filled with camera equipment.”

He gestures her to a small table, and then he retrieves two beers without asking. The cool glass feels nice against her fingers. She wraps her palm around it, and holds on. “You’re working construction?” she asks.

“The hat gave it away?” He shrugs. “Yeah. I did it before. It’s not glamorous but it pays the bills—and keeps me in shape.”

“And I’m sure the hat is adorable.”

“I’ll wear it for you sometime,” he says, mouth creasing into a small smile. They hold that look for a few more seconds, and then all traces of amusement drops from Karen’s face.

Frank nods at her. “You were at the courthouse today.”

Her fingers tighten on the beer. “Are you following me?”

“No, but I’ve only ever seen you wear that to court.”

It’s true—this white and black dress is a little too stiff to wear anywhere else. She just never thought he would notice.

“It was Kotov’s trial today, wasn’t it?” Frank asks. He’s been reading the papers, then.

She nods. Doesn’t say a word, because she knows he’ll read the truth from her face.

His expression sours. “He got off.”

“Technicality,” she says wearily. “The search warrant was dated for the day after—it’s a clusterfuck.”

She leans on the table. It’s dented and worn, probably from a second hand store. She runs her thumb along one of the nicks, tracing it back and forth. “I interviewed the victims,” she says. “All who would speak to me. We won’t print their names, of course. The story hasn’t run yet—Ellison was waiting for the trial to be over. It was going to be a victorious piece on survival in the face of evil. But now… damn it.” She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. “They’re kids. They’re just kids, and they’re going to know that he’s still out there.”

Frank is watching her without a word. His face is a little wary, a little distant, but not unreachable.

“Sometimes,” she says, and the words hurt to say aloud. “Sometimes the truth isn’t enough.”

“No,” he replies, “it isn’t.”

They drink their beers in silence. She likes this about Frank: there’s never any imperative to fill the quiet moments. They can simply be in one another’s company.

Frank drains the last of his beer and sets the bottle on the table. “Stay in tonight.”

She blinks. “What?”

“Stay in tonight,” he repeats. Then adds, more quietly, “Please.”

She knows what he’s truly asking for—and perhaps the Karen of a year ago would have balked at the insinuation. But this Karen has seen those girls, rail-thin and terrified. She’s seen friends die. She’s seen enough of the world to know that there are some people better off not in it.

She knows that Matt would have been horrified by that thought.

But she’s no saint.

“Be careful,” she tells him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replies.

* * *

She doesn’t sleep well that night; she keeps falling into restless half-dreams, then startling awake. Several times, she dreams that Frank has slipped into her apartment, but every time she goes to check, all the locks are still in place. She ends up on the couch beneath her woven throw. She watches the lights play across her windows, the movement of late-night traffic.

Finally, around three in the morning, she gets a text.

_Go to sleep, Karen. Everything’s fine._

She breathes.

One breath after another, until her hands are steady enough to type a reply. She won’t ask how he knows that she’s awake.

_Goodnight, Frank._

* * *

The next morning, the Bulletin is buzzing with the news that Kotov was knifed in what seems to be a drug deal gone wrong.

* * *

Frank is in her apartment when she gets home.

She’s exhausted, both from the sleepless night and the chaos at work. Everything was a mess of press releases, statements and counter-statements. They’re going to be writing articles about Kotov for a month. 

Frank is in the kitchen, which makes her go still with surprise. She never took him for the cooking type—but there he is, chopping vegetables with ease. He glances over his shoulder. “What’s this?” she says, sliding her purse onto the table. “A home invasion?”

“Pretty sure it’s only a home invasion if I don’t have a key,” he says mildly. He turns to look at her. His shirt is rolled up over his forearms, and he looks like every fantasy she’s tried not to have. “You want me to leave?”

She understands at once. He wants to know where they stand—if she wants the Punisher in her kitchen, wielding a knife.

“God, no,” she says. “I’d been planning on stale pretzels and a glass of wine for dinner.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “Wonderful habits you’ve picked up working as a journalist.”

“Well, we have stereotypes to live up to.” She leans over him, glancing at the counter. There are sliced chicken breasts, ready to be added to the pan. She watches with interest as he works. There’s an ease to his movements that speaks of practice. “Anything I can do?”

He waves her off.

That night, they eat dinner together. Chicken and vegetables and rice—and the fare is far better than Karen would have ever expected. She compliments him, and he looks ruefully amused. “We split cooking duties, when I was home,” he says. “Maria and I. Frankie went through a few months when all he’d eat was chicken—chicken nuggets, chicken strips, chicken sandwiches. I had to learn a few ways to prepare it, so the kid didn’t end up with scurvy or something.”

She laughs. “I remember those days. My younger brother once decided he’d only eat oranges and peanut butter for a few weeks. Drove our dad a bit crazy.”

It feels nice to mention her family, if only in passing moments. Nice because he doesn’t push—and nor does she. It’s as if he can sense the old wounds beneath her words. He probably can.

They split the dishes between them—her washing and Frank drying. They work in silence, and it’s only when Frank is leaving that he truly speaks again.

“Here,” he says, and hands her a key. “It’s to my place. In case you want to come over again.”

She takes it. It feels heavy in her palm.

She has never been invited into his space before: she broke into his house after they met, she invaded his past, slipped into his hospital room, and summoned him with flowers and phone calls. This—this is different, and she knows it. He knows it, too. “The guns are behind a false back in the closet,” he says blandly. “In case you ever need one.”

She exhales sharply. “Frank.”

“Knives are under the bed.”

“Frank—”

“Grenades are in the fridge.”

“Fra— _what?_ ”

He smiles briefly, then it falls away. “You’re… part of this,” he says. “There’s no war—not anymore. I’m trying to find this so-called ‘second life’ that Curt’s always going on about. But I won’t stand by if something… if I hear a scream in the dark, I won’t close my eyes and try to ignore it. And if you’ve got a name, I’ll take it.” He folds her fingers around the key. “I don’t want to see you sitting on my stairs again, okay?”

“Okay,” she says. She watches as he takes his coat and pulls it on. She wants to say something, but she’s not sure what. How much she appreciates that he trusts her, that he’s let her in this far.

Instead, she says, “Do you really have grenades?”

His smile is wicked and beautiful, and the last thing she sees before he quietly pulls the door shut behind him.

* * *

The thing is, she knows she’s in too deep.

She knows it, and she can’t bring herself to care.

* * *

The next time Frank comes over, she’s been drugged.

The world is awash with bright headlights and noises and so many damned people. Everything is a blur, a painting with water splashing across it, colors bleeding into one another. Karen’s stomach sloshes and her head is ringing, and she feels so fucking drunk she wants to curl up in a corner and float away. But she can’t. Not like this. She’s been this vulnerable once before—and she never wants to, not again. She has to get somewhere safe. She needs to get home.

She has little memory of how she gets to her apartment, but the next thing she knows, she is stumbling up the stairwell. Her fingers feel numb and she can’t find the right apartment key. She tries once, twice, and then her fucking keys just slip from her fingers. She stares at them for a moment, and then apartment door opens without her touching it.

Frank is standing there, with one brow crooked in amusement. “You drunk, ma’am?” He is dressed in a dark green henley and black jeans and for a moment, she wonders if she’s hallucinating.

She reaches down for her keys, but then the world tips sideways.

She doesn’t hit the hard, industrial carpet of the hallway. There are arms around her, a low voice cursing in her ear, and then fingers at her hairline, skimming strands out of her eyes. She can’t quite believe he’s here; it feels like her muddled brain must have conjured him up. But his touch feels more real than anything else—one hand cradled around the back of her head, the other running down her stomach, up her arms, searching for a wound that isn’t there.

“Karen,” he says, and there’s that rough edge to his voice. She realizes it’s not the first time he’s said her name. “Karen, tell me what’s wrong.” She feels his thumb just behind her ear. It’s so soothing that she could simply drift away—and she wants to. To sleep off this terrible night, to just let it all slide away.

“Karen, I swear to God, if you don’t say something right now I am hauling you to the nearest ER and—”

His voice is fraying with alarm, and that makes her blink her eyes open.

“Frank?” she says.

His face is a blurry mess, but she can still make out the tight set of his jaw. “Yeah, I’m here. Talk to me, sweetheart. What happened?”

Her words run together, blurring in her ears. “Was out for drinks with coworkers. Two beers, that was it… but I could feel something’s wrong, so I snuck out the back.”

His mouth works silently for a moment, shaping curses. Finally he says, “All right. All right.”

She feels him slip an arm beneath her knees, the other around her shoulders, and then he lifts her into the air.

On another day, being carried bridal-style by Frank Castle might have been the stuff of fantasies. But all she can think of is how it makes her stomach flip over, and a cold sweat breaks out on her brow. Moving is not good—it’s _really_ not good.

“I’m going to throw up on you,” she mumbles into his shirt.

She can feel him walking into the apartment, hears him kick the door shut. “S’fine, I never liked this shirt anyways.”

He maneuvers her into the bathroom and then her forehead is pressed to cold porcelain and then, sure enough, she is vomiting. She feels wretched. Sick and humiliated and there’s something burning hot within her—anger. She’s so angry, and helpless, and that makes her even angrier. The toilet flushes.

“Hospital?” Frank asks, when she manages to lift her head.

“No.” The idea of everyone peering down at her, seeing Karen Page clumsy and helpless and sick, makes her want to grit her teeth and snarl. Instead, she vomits a second time. All that comes up is bile, and her stomach cramps hard. She makes a pained sound, and she hates how it echoes in the small bathroom.

Frank’s hand comes to rest between her shoulder blades, thumb moving in small circles.

It’s the last thing she feels before the darkness at the edges of her vision finally closes in.


	4. Chapter 4

When she wakes, she’s still in the bathroom.

There’s a blanket around and a folded towel beneath her head. She’s on her side—presumably so she won’t drown in her own vomit if she’s sick again. Her skin is uncomfortably hot, her head aches, and her mouth feels like sour sandpaper. A few feet away is Frank. He sits with his back to the wall, eyes closed and she doesn’t know how he could sleep like that but somehow he manages. For a few minutes, she simply looks at him. With his long legs curled to one side, eyes closed and mouth a little slack. She can hear a faint snore—not surprising with that broken nose. She uses her elbow to half-rise, surveying the damage. She’s still wearing her work dress but her feet are bare. There’s a few scrapes on her legs, some bruises. She must have stumbled on her way home.

Frank must hear her moving, because his eyes snap open. He reaches up, flicking on the light.

“Hey,” she croaks.

His chest rises and falls as he takes a deep breath. “You awake this time?”

“Was I awake before?”

“It’s been a little touch and go.”

She sits up and it feels like someone took a hammer to her skull. She presses a hand to her forehead and makes a soft sound. “God.”

He moves a little closer, hand extended. “May I…?”

She isn’t sure what he wants, but she trusts him. She nods. He touches her jaw, tilting her face upward. The illumination hurts, but she blinks the discomfort away. He studies her face, then tells her to follow his finger with her eyes. “Isn’t that for concussions?” she asks.

“You were falling down when you came home,” he says shortly. “Wasn’t sure if there was a head injury along with whatever shit you were given.”

She hears the simmering fury behind his words. He’s tamping it down, probably for her sake, but she can see it spilling over in small ways: the flex of his fingers and the tautness around his eyes.

“You should drink something,” he says. “Then we’ll figure the rest of this out.”

 _We._ The word strikes a chord within her, and she has to look away. The last time she was a ‘we’ with anyone, she was standing in Nelson and Murdock and felt so tentatively happy—she should have known it wouldn’t last.

He makes her breakfast. She doesn’t eat much of it—just a few bites of sourdough toast. There’s plenty of black coffee for him and a huge glass of water for her. She feels oddly numb about the whole thing. Frank doesn’t talk; it’s only when she’s sitting on the couch, knees drawn up to her chest, that he says something.

“What’s his name?”

She lets out a breath. She knew this was coming, knew it the moment she saw Frank Castle standing in her doorway.

She holds herself a little tighter. “I don’t have it.”

“What happened?” he says. As if he needs to know. And perhaps some injuries need to be set before they can heal, so she tells him.

“It was just drinks with some coworkers. I know them all—by name, at least. There were about ten of us? Four or five were men. I don’t know who dosed me—it might not have been any of them.” Her fingers fidget in her lap. “I went to the bathroom. I left my beer. I thought it was fine, because I was with friends. But the place was crowded, so who knows.

“I’ll file a report with Brett,” she says, when she’s finished. She sees his mouth press thin. He doesn’t like that, but he doesn’t say so. She can almost hear his unspoken objections. “It might not have been any of my coworkers,” she says. “It could have been the bartender or someone else. I won’t condemn anyone without evidence.”

His gaze falls to her hands, and she realizes that she’s been twisting them together so tightly the knuckles are white.

“Who do you think it was?” he asks.

She shrugs helplessly. “I honestly don’t know. I thought—I mean, I work with them. I don’t want to think it’d be anyone at the Bulletin—“

 _But then again_ , some dark part of her whispers, _wasn’t Ellison’s own assistant dirty? Working for Fisk?_

That thought sends a chill through her so profound that she can’t hold back a shudder.

“I’ll do some checking,” she says. “Maybe talk to Ellison.”

His voice is unyielding. “If you find out…”

She looks at him sharply. “You’ll—what? Frank, this isn’t like your other jobs. Whoever did this—they didn’t succeed in whatever they were planning to do. We’ll handle it like any other person.” She takes another sip of water. “Thanks for taking care of me last night.”

“You’d’ve done the same for me.” He flexes his right arm. “Pretty sure you’ve done more.”

She wants to ask him what happened after she drifted into that darkness—if she said anything. She is all bound up in secrets, and she fears that one of them may have slithered free. But she’s too exhausted to deal with the ramifications if she did say something incriminating. “I’ll go talk to Brett once I shower.”

“Want company?” he asks.

She does laugh at that. “Yeah, because you walking into a police station sounds like a great idea.”

He’d do it, though. She knows he would.

* * *

She files that report in the afternoon; by then, she’s steady enough to put on a sweater and jeans. She doesn’t have the energy for a curling iron and make-up, so she simply pulls her hair into a loose ponytail. Brett heaves a sigh when he sees her, murmurs something about his week being explosion-free, but when she quietly says she’d like to file a report, his expression sobers at once.

When she leaves the police station and returns to her car, Frank is still sitting in the driver’s seat, toying with the radio stations. “I can drive,” she says, but he merely gestures her toward the passenger’s seat.

“Don’t know why you even own a car,” he says. “It’s New York. No one drives.”

“I’m not from here,” she answers. “Where I lived, if you didn’t have a car—you didn’t go anywhere. Rural towns are fun like that.”

A smile tugs at his mouth. “Hard to imagine you in some small town. Did you run about farms in those pumps?”

“I have other shoes,” she replies. “The pencil skirts didn’t make an appearance until I got my first secretary job and realized that mud-stained jeans and duck boots probably wouldn’t cut it.”

He drives, but he doesn’t take her back to the apartment. To her surprise, she finds herself at a park instead. It’s a small dog park, full of kids playing with bulldogs and tiny purebreds barking at large mutts, and even someone with a rabbit in a stroller. Karen finds herself studying that stroller instead of wondering why Frank Castle took her to a dog park. He’s wearing a hoodie and hat—and all right, so he doesn’t exactly look like the Punisher of the news articles, but she still worries someone might recognize him.

They sit on a bench and he vanishes for a few minutes and returns with a black coffee for himself and a latte for her. The paper cup is warm in her hands, the sunlight welcome on her face, and for she feels strangely calm. Not that terrible numbness of earlier, but calm and—safe. All right, she’ll admit it, if only to herself. She feels safe in the shadow of a man that gives other people nightmares.

“Why are we here?” she asks.

A shrug. “It’s a dog park,” he says.

She points a fingertip at herself. The polish is chipped and has been for several days. She should probably take it off. “Somehow the intrepid reporter had already figured that part out.”

“I like dogs,” he says.

It’s such a simple answer, and one that knocks her sideways. She thought maybe this place was a secret meeting spot or perhaps he wanted talk with an informant about recent sales of illegal sedatives.

“Did you have one?” she asks, watching as a yorkie takes offense to a mastiff and begins barking wildly. The mastiff just wags its tail.

He shakes his head. “There was… talk. Before. Maria didn’t want to get one while I was deployed—said the kids wouldn’t realize what kind of responsibility it was. But Frankie and Lisa were wearing her down, and I think… yeah. Maybe if things had gone differently.” There’s a sadness to his face, but it’s the quiet kind of grief. A mourning for what could have been, as much as what he lost.

“You think you’ll get one now?”

He exhales, brings his coffee to his lips. “I did—for a few days. Irish had fighting pits. I, uh, might have kept one. He was kind of banged up, but he was a good dog. Kept me company for a few days. The Irish took him back when they took me—not sure what happened to him after I was arrested.”

She imagines him bandaging a dog’s injuries, taking time from his vendetta to save a life. “Still all heart,” she says. His own words, echoed back to him.

He snorts.

They watch the dogs for a few minutes. It’s soothing in a way she doesn’t expect. Maybe she should take up volunteering at a shelter or something.

When her latte is gone, she toys with the edge of the paper cup. “It went pretty well with Brett.” He hasn’t pressed, which she appreciates. He’ll wait for her to volunteer the information. “He didn’t think I was lying, at least. He asked about how I was affected by the drugs—I told him it was the usual—confusion, vomiting, passing out. I gave him the names of the people I was out with. He’ll probably ask a few questions at the bar, see if anyone saw anything. But I don’t know if anything’ll really come out of it.”

Frank’s head jerks toward her. “What?” she asks, startled.

“The usual,” he says flatly. “Has this—before…?”

Oh. Shit—that just slipped out.

The memories flood up to meet her. She remembers her cheek against a hard table—the ache in her head, the sound of a smug man’s voice saying he wasn’t sure if she’d ever wake up. Wesley sitting across from her, a gun between them.

She doesn’t answer, which is its own kind of answer.

The empty cup crumples in Frank’s hand.

He stares at the park without truly seeing it. “Sometimes I think about this world,” he says. “About the world Lisa would have grown into. And I know she was strong—she was the strongest of us all. Smart as anything, you know? And she was so beautiful.” His jaw clenches. “But it doesn’t matter how strong or smart you are—not when there are sick fucks running around.”

She wonders if that is part of his mission: if he is trying to remake the world into the kind of place he would have wanted his daughter to live in.

She takes his gloved hand between both of hers and squeezes lightly. It’s a momentary touch, and she begins to pull away when Frank’s fingers slip through hers and hold on.

They sit like that for some time.

* * *

They return to her apartment in the late afternoon.

When she says she’s fine, that he can go home, his brows draw tight. “You want me to go?” he asks.

She can’t make her mouth form the word ‘yes.’ So he stays.

It’s a Saturday, and it takes longer than usual for the Thai place around the corner to deliver. They eat at her table, and the conversation is kept to safe things: if she should repaint the apartment, what building Frank is working on, if the mayor will run for reelection. This is as much for him as it is for her, she thinks. If he goes, he’ll be alone, too. And his presence is putting off the moment when she sits alone in her apartment and feels the anger and the fear flood her. Angry about how the world is, and fearful what what might have happened.

When it’s late, Frank goes to the closet and retrieves the blankets and sheets. He makes up the couch, and when she’s about to slip into her bedroom, he says, “Hey.”

She glances back at him.

“Just—sleep well,” he says. It sounds as if they weren’t the words he wanted to say, but what came out.

She nods and quietly steps into her bedroom.

Her sheets are cool and familiar, and while she half-expects to lie there, awake, she falls asleep quickly.

It isn’t a blessing—not when the dreams come quickly, too.

She is back in that room. With the concrete floors and the table, and the sedative on the back of her tongue. There is a gun on the table and a man before her. She is going to die. She is going to die—but not before everyone else does. She has to grab the gun, has to fire it, but her fingers are too slow. Every muscle feels if it were struggling through thick mud.

She reaches for the gun, tries to grab it, but it’s already in Wesley’s hand. She looks at the barrel, dark like the pupil of an eye, and sees the flash.

She comes awake gasping, clutching at the blankets. She can’t seem to get enough air.

Her bedroom door swings open and Frank is there, framed in the light from the hallway. He’s dressed only in boxers—and of course he is, because it’s not as if he’s carting around pajamas in his back pocket or something. And there’s a gun in his hand.

His gaze sweeps across the bedroom before settling on her. “You all right?” he asks.

She sits up, puts her back to the headboard and tries to get her breathing back under control. “Just—dreams. Sorry.”

He sets the gun on the dresser, safety on, and moves toward the bed. “Nightmares.” It isn’t a question.

“Yeah,” she says.

He looks as though he isn’t sure what to say—and doesn’t that make two of them. “Do you—I don’t know. Want to talk about it?”

She laughs. It’s a strange little hiccuping laugh, but a laugh. “Is the Punisher asking if I want to talk out my pain?”

He sits on the edge of the bed. She can see the shape of him, if not all the details: the broad expanse of his shoulders, the lean forearms, and the broken nose. There are a few moments in which he doesn’t reply, but when he does, his voice is steady and low. “Meetings,” he says.

Perhaps she’s still a little groggy, because his meaning isn’t clear. “What?”

“Every week,” he says. “I go—to meetings.” Every word takes a moment, as if he cannot utter them all at once. “It’s… fuck.” He rubs a hand over his face. “The friend I was staying with. His name’s Curtis. He runs a group for vets. After the carousel—after everything—he finally convinced me to go.”

Oh. She understands—and she yearns to put her arms around him and pull him close. “Frank. That’s good.”

“Half of it is Curt’s sentimental crap about starting our ‘second lives,’” he says, and while he doesn’t roll his eyes, she can hear the sentiment in those last two words. “Other half is—just talking. About the shit that went wrong. About how it’s still going wrong, and how we deal with it.” He looks at her. “I won’t pretend to know everything you’ve gone through. But if you want to tell me…” He leaves the sentence open-ended, waiting for her to fill in the blanks. Or not, if she prefers. She knows that if she shakes her head, he’ll rise from this bed and leave.

He’s good at leaving.

She’s good at letting him.

And she’s done with it.

This is what she has learned working as a reporter: the truth will claw itself to freedom; she’s spent months trying to cage her own truths within herself, and it’s left her bleeding and shaken. And besides—if Frank is going to be near her, he deserves to know.

“The other night wasn’t the first time I’ve been drugged,” she says. Her voice is soft; she fears being overheard even in the privacy of her own bedroom.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” she says. “It wasn’t a frat party or a bar, or the usual places someone goes after a woman. This was back when Nelson & Murdock was trying to build a case against Wilson Fisk. I was part of that, because I’d been the whistle-blower on one of his money laundering schemes, and I wouldn’t stop working with Ben Urich and the Bulletin to get the truth out. Fisk’s people tried to have me killed… twice. Fisk did kill Ben.”

A muscle twitches in Frank’s forearm. Her gaze drops to his hands, so she won’t have to look at his face for this part. His index finger is still—but only because his other hand is holding it tight.

She continues, “Fisk’s right hand man—a man called Wesley—had me abducted. They used—something. I don’t know, it was on a rag and they forced it over my nose and mouth. I just remember trying to breathe, and all I could taste was chemicals.”

“Fisk had you kidnapped?” Frank says the words slowly, as if he hopes she’ll contradict him after each one.

“Fisk didn’t know,” she says. “I mean—I think he didn’t know. Wesley took me to a warehouse, waited for me to wake up, and sat across from me. He talked, like it was some kind of conversation, like it was normal to drug someone and talk with them.” She pauses to take a breath, to steady herself. “He wanted me to work for Fisk. Said that if I didn’t, I’d die. But not before everyone I loved was murdered first. He set a gun on the table between us to illustrate his point. His phone rang and he picked it up, so I—”

She can’t continue. All she can remember is the recoil of the gun in her hand, the squeeze of the trigger as she pulled it again and again and again until it clicked empty.

“You shot him,” Frank says, with quiet certainty.

“I unloaded an entire clip into him,” she admits. “Then I threw the gun into the river and went back to my apartment to shower off any evidence.” She takes a shaky breath. “I never told anyone. Not Matt or Foggy. I was afraid of what they’d think of me.”

For a heartbeat, there’s quiet. Karen sits there, some of her bloody secrets spilled between them, and waits for sentencing.

There’s a touch beneath her chin. Gentle pressure, callused fingers, and then she looks up into Frank’s face. His eyes are stormy dark, fury lurking at the corners of his mouth, but there’s nothing but admiration in his voice when he says, “You did good.”

“I didn’t—”

“You survived,” he says, ignoring her. “You protected those you cared about. And anyone who says differently can get fucked.”

She lets out a helpless sound that might be a sob or a laugh.

“I should have killed him,” says Frank, voice an octave lower. It’s his Punisher voice—all sandpaper and iron.

She looks at him sharply. “Who—Fisk?”

“In prison.” Frank’s mouth curls into a snarl. “That bastard used me like a grenade—lobbed me into a crowd of his enemies and just watched the carnage. I told him as much when he let me out. Said that one of us wouldn’t walk away if we met again.”

“Your face was one giant bruise after you broke out of prison,” she says. “I don’t think you were in any condition to take on the most dangerous crime lord in the city.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“Our waitress in that diner didn’t recognize you because you were so banged up.”

“And here I thought I’d charmed her with my good lucks and manners.”

She smiles, and it’s a bit rueful and only lasts a heartbeat, but it feels nice. Frank’s face has softened as he looks at her. “It was self-defense, Karen. Any court would’ve said the same. You’d been kidnapped. And if the world was—fuck, if this was the kind of world that people like you deserved, then you could’ve gone to the cops and told them.” He takes a breath. “So, is this it? The reason?”

“Is this… what?”

He looks at her out of the corner of his eyes, as if he cannot bear to turn his head. “All of it. Taking my case, going to my house, talking to me even when I scared you—”

“Frank, you never scared—”

“Yes,” he interrupts, “I did. After that shooting in the hospital, before we really talked. You were scared. But you stayed, anyways. You fought for me, you dug deeper than anyone else, you refused to give up. Fuck, even now you’re still doing more for me than you should. All the food and the clothes and the couch. Was it because you thought, if someone like me could kill a person and not be a monster—so could you?”

She drags in an unsteady breath. “No—I don’t know. Maybe at first. I wanted… I was looking for answers and maybe I looked for them in you.”

He shakes his head. “Terrible place to go looking.”

“I don’t think so.” Karen licks her dry lips. His eyes flick down to her mouth and away. It’s such a small glance, but she sees it. “I kind of like what I found.”

When he speaks, his voice is barely a rasp. “What’s that?”

She can feel the tension between them—it’s been there for months, unacknowledged but tangible. “You.”

Karen has seen Frank Castle torn up: she’s seen him bleeding and broken, eyes rimmed with red and every hope shattered. And through all of it, he remained silent.

But now, he makes a sound like she has wounded him. His hand comes up, cups her jaw and then he’s right there, so close she can breathe him in. Her own hand lands on his bare chest. He’s so warm, and she can feel the steady beat of his heart. And then his hand covers hers, and she expects him to push her away, but he merely takes her hand and brings it to his mouth. He kisses the soft place just beneath her wrist. 

“I can’t be—I can’t.” The words come out quietly, a spill of emotion. But he keeps her hand there, fingers curled around his cheek. Stubble rasps beneath her palm. “I’m not—I’ll never be that nine-to-five kind of guy, the guy who does shit like fix toilets and mow the lawn.”

“I don’t have a lawn,” she murmurs. Her thumb moves across his cheek; she feels strangely bold in this darkened room. “And I know how to unplug a toilet.”

He laughs—and it’s hoarse and quick, but it’s real. And God, she loves the sound of it. “I love you,” she says, because she won’t lie to him.

He makes that noise again, and his brow touches hers. It’s a little like the elevator, but without the taste of drywall in her mouth and Frank’s blood on her fingers. She has time to savor the nearness. She feels a shudder run through him, and then his hand is on her waist, sliding up her back.

“Karen,” he says. “I’m not sure how this all ends. I’m fucked to hell and if I drag you down this path with me…”

And so she recalls the words.

Because is the truth of it—how it all truly began. With two words. Frank uttered them the first time, so it’s only fair she says them now.

“Stay,” she says. “Please.”

When Frank Castle kisses her, it doesn’t feel like a first kiss. They’ve teetered on the edge of this for far too long, and falling into one another is as simple as gravity. One of his hands is in her hair and the other curls around her waist, pulling her closer. He isn’t gentle, but she doesn’t want him to be. She wants him—all of him. Raw and honest, sharp and fiercely dedicated. He has never once made her feel small, and perhaps this is why she loves him. His mouth is soft against hers, his stubble rough against her cheek. He eases her back against the bed and she goes willingly, fingers splayed between his shoulder blades.

His mouth moves to her cheek and she’s reminded of that meeting beside the river. That light touch of lips against her skin—a moment of warmth before he vanished into the darkness. She holds him tighter, wraps her leg around his calf. She’s going to hold onto this.

He kisses his way down to the hollow of her throat. He reaches the neckline of her t-shirt, and hesitates, his fingertips at her waist. She reaches down, pulls off the garment, and almost gets her hair snagged as she tries to wriggle free. It’s a less than dignified moment, her arms all tangled up, and Frank’s not helping because his hands are sliding up her belly, and every touch burns through her. With a gaps, she manages to rip the shirt off and sends it flying across the bedroom.

The first touch of his mouth against her breasts has her arching up against him. There’s just a glint of teeth in the dark—he’s smiling, and then she’s gasping when he tongues her nipple. She’s making noises now—little bitten-off moans that seem to delight him. His lips curl at the corners, and she should have known that sex would bring out that wicked amusement of his.

Well, two can play at that game.

She can feel his hard cock against her thigh. She reaches down, cups his erection through his boxers, lightly exploring the shape of him. His whole body stiffens, goes still, and then his mouth moving down her chest, to her stomach, and lower. He slips from her grip, and before she can utter a word, presses his mouth to her clothed sex.

 _Oh God_. She can feel the warmth and dampness of his tongue even though her panties, and somehow the touch is all the more tantalizing for the barrier. She makes a sound that might be a whimper when he drags his tongue up and over her clit. Every muscle in her clenches, pleasure a tight coil as he laps at her again and again. “F-Frank,” she says, his name cracking out of her. He groans against her, as if this is all he wants, where he wants to be—with her legs splayed about his shoulders. “Fuck. Take it off.”

He nuzzles the inside of her thigh. “I kind of like you like this.”

“Frank.”

“You attached to these?”

“N-not really.”

She feels his thumb edge beneath the hem of her panties, and then feels the fabric tear. She’s so wet that the air feels cool against her, and then—

She jack-knifes up from the bed when his tongue curls around her bare clit, but he’s got one hand on her stomach, steadying her. She’s moaning openly now, unable to keep silent or still, not when his fingers are slipping into her. It’s so intense it almost hurts, but she needs more. She can feel herself tightening on his fingers, and so she says, “Wait, wait.” He pulls back at once, and he looks like sin with his pupils wide and lips swollen.

“Come here,” she says, and pulls him close.

There are condoms in the drawer beside her bed. She rolls one onto him, watches as his eyes flutter closed as she strokes him. Then he’s taking her leg, wrapping it around his waist. He’s careful about putting too much weight on her, even as he presses in. That first long stroke has her writhing against him, nails biting into his side. He’s got one arm braced above her head, fingers curling around her hair and it reminds her of the first time he was this close—pressing her to a floor while bullets tore into her apartment. He held her as if she were the only thing that mattered—and that’s how he holds her now.

He’s groaning now, lips at her ear as he moves. “Karen. Fuck.” He feels perfect inside of her, around her. She urges him on, hips moving against his, and he picks up the pace, driving into her. His pelvis grinds into her clit with every stroke. She whimpers, pleasure rising within her, straining higher and higher, and then she is clenching around him, orgasm stealing the breath from her lungs.

He curses again, fists knotted in the sheets, and all it takes is a few more strokes before she feels him go taut. Then he’s panting in her ear, rolling off before his full weight can rest upon her. For a few moments, all she can do is try to catch her breath. Her body is still quivering, sweat cooling on her bare limbs.

There’s a bit of clean-up, after. The condom is knotted off and thrown in the bathroom trashcan; Karen gets a glass of water for her parched throat; Frank finds his boxers on the floor because he swears he’s not sleeping naked. “Imagine if someone broke in,” he murmurs, when he takes her into his arms again. She curls against him, sated and happier than she can ever remember being.

“Then they’d find out that the Punisher is packing more than just a Glock?” she says.

He laughs and it’s best thing she’s ever heard from him. “You do know I love you, right?” He says the words quietly, so quietly. As if he’s afraid the universe might overhear.

Her fingers trace the scar above his right ear. “I think I might have figured it out.”

* * *

He stays.

And it’s surprising how little changes.

She still goes to work, writes about crime and corruption, shining lights in dark corners—and he goes into the dark and takes care of the monsters she can’t touch. Sometimes he brings her tips. Sometimes she gives him names.

When he officially moves in, he puts his name on the lease as Pete Castiglione. A gift from the government, he explains, when she asks about his social security number and bank accounts. Even so they’re both careful. If anyone recognizes him… she doesn’t want to think about it.

They each have their own routines: Frank jogs early in the morning, while she is more concerned with coffee and showers; Karen carves out Thursday evenings to grab a drink with Foggy and Marci; Frank goes to meetings every week.

She’s proud of him.

It’s not all easy. There are arguments. Dirty dishes in the sink—hers. Gun oil stains on the carpet—his. A few heated debates about where his work overlaps with hers. He wakes from nightmares far too often, and she hasn’t told him everything about her past. Their broken edges scrape against one another occasionally. He won’t brook any threats to her, and she refuses to be coddled. And at the back of her mind, she still knows that Fisk will be a problem someday.

They’ll deal with that when it comes.

In the meantime, they’re going to live—and live well.

She thinks they’ve earned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! And big hugs to everyone who’s commented! I love you all.


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